Ryobi Table Saw - Bad cuts

Your fence is out of line it needs to be squared up

-- Jim from Heirloom Woodshop Southern Oregon

Is this a new Ryobi TS or a used one you picked up? I had a BT3000, that was my first TS when I was getting serious about woodworking. Bought it new and I don’t think I kept it a year. Sold it and bought a UniSaw. Because no matter how many times I set it up and adjusted it, its repeatability for cuts and its accuracy was just never there. If it’s a new one, looking at the Ryobi offerings, those are more of a contractors saw and not a saw that is generally meant for fine woodworking. As I remember, my Ryobi had a fence that locked down in the front and in the back, a good thing I thought. Not so, because it never locked accurately and always had to be tweaked before the cut, otherwise it cut boards like you’re describing. If your fence is of that design you maybe be fighting that too. a1Jim is right your fence needs to be adjusted/aligned to be parallel to the blade, but those fences do not look to be a high caliber fence so it may always need to be adjusted.

A note on why I sold it and bought the UniSaw I could not at the time afford. When I decided to replace the Ryobi TS I was looking at Jet and General mostly in the $800 range, I had paid $500 for the Ryobi, this was probably back around 95’-96’. After a while of looking around I said to myself, what if I buy the $800 saw and don’t like it either? I had $1000 into the Ryobi with all its attachments (which I thought were really neat and useful), now I’ll be out $1800 and be looking to buy a third saw? That’s when I bit the bullet and scraped and bought the UniSaw. Never regretted it. Probably one of the best things I ever did.

-- -Curt, Milwaukee, WI

Thanks for the info guys. I’ve tried aligning my fence 2 or 3 times already to no avail. I’ll try again, perhaps I’m just not doing it right.

I generally subscribe to the “buy good quality tools” thinking, since I always get burned by low quality tools, but unfortunately a more expensive table saw just isn’t in the cards right now.

Jim and Curt are right … I suffered through a low-end saw (mine was the cheap Delta) and was frustrated every time I used it. I finally bought a Jet and equipped it with a decent fence … made all of the difference in the world.

-- The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary. -- Vincent T. Lombardi

Well, I cut it cutting straight. I ended up aligning the fence w/ the miter track.

However, when I cut thin pieces, say 1/2” or less (with the 1/2” strip b/w the blade and the fence) the strip seems to stick towards the end, it’s takes more pushing to get it through and the side of the wood burns sometimes… so maybe it’s not aligned quite right yet…sigh

Ryobi makes a few different saws. It’d be helpful to know the model #. Maybe someone will know the “easy” method.

It’s the BTS12S

http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1vZ1xh7/R-100058430/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053

“the strip seems to stick towards the end, it’s takes more pushing to get it through and the side of the wood burns sometimes”

This indicates that the blade is not aligned parallel to the miter slot – and of course the fence, since you already aligned to fence to the slot. You need to fix this immediately as you are asking for a kickback and a piece of wood in your face or stomach (or whatever else is at tabletop height!)

-- Joe

I have the same saw, which I used for several years until I was able to get a bigger saw about a year ago.

Are you sure the fence is staying put? The biggest problem I had is that the back of the fence used to drift a bit. You could get it perfectly aligned before the cut, but during the cut the back end would shift to the right a bit. The only workaround I found was to clamp the back of the fence to the table to keep it in place.

-- Charlie M. "Woodworking - patience = firewood"

I’ll try clamping the fence down tonight. I was also thinking about trying just clamping down a straight piece of scrap that I have sitting around…I figured if that works then the fence is the problem.

Before I installed a Delta T2 fence (on a “generic” contractor saw) clamping the back of the fence was Stand Operating Procedure, using a Quick Grip clamp.

-- Joe